Human common descent ancestor discovered - Page 9

You are (surely by now) aware of how The Science™ works?

For all of you loonies arguing that DNA cannot be added, then why is it that it can be taken away?

It's clear that genes can change in structure, not only in content. But you're still arguing that they cannot, with no proof whatsoever.

Actually chromosomes can be added. And it happens in humans, usually resulting in a negative effect. But imagine that a trisomic human endures, and reproduces with another trisomic human. There you have it, a human with 24 pairs of chromosomes. The extra chromosome can result in added complexity within the organism. That's EXACTLY how a microbe can over millions of years develop into an animal walking on two legs.

Away for a few days on an impulsive trip to Oman; this thread has turned rather more acidic !

Excellent. The scientific community tend to be rather too polite. Vituperative comments are far more entertaining.

Will have a look at the historical accuracy of the bible links. i suspect that there may well be a lot of historical detail in there, it being the history of a people and their interpretation of the world. although i might examine some other sites without christian in the title as well for balance.

the problem of course is the jump from 'history book' to 'definitive truth of the world and how everything ever happened'. historians get things wrong - both modern historians and blokes wandering round in the desert 4000 years ago. (er, sweeping generalizations, but you get my drift)

presumably the arguement is that the bible is a 'definitive truth of the world and how everything ever happened' because god 'made the bloke write down said definitive truth' just right.

um. too many assumptions for my taste. assume nothing often better.

are there creationists etc who believe that the earth is in fact billions of years old? That a god started the universe off, and left it to it? whatever one's belief in the existence or not a god, this fits with what we know so far and in no way clashes with the bible (just that the bible does rather well at condensing billions of years of development into a few history pages )

or, is the key precept that humans exist, therefore god exists.

I find this all rather confusing.

sorry for bibbling on. too many questions, too much hangover
-----

I stumbled on something interesting.

I've been reading creation myths and this week I've been looking at how Genesis (a really beautiful book) has been understand for the last 1,000 years or so, mostly chasing up literature about the the actual geographical location of the Garden of Eden.

It's been on the North Pole, on top of a mountain in the orbit of the moon, in Turkey, Ethiopia, under lake Galillee. Cool stuff.

Now. A river flows out of Eden and separates into four heads: the Euphrates, the Havilah, the Gilhon and the Hiddekel.

Can we find where the Garden actually was? Yes, we can. We identify the rivers and trace them back to their source; we can use satellite pictures, which Sir Walter Raleigh couldn't, and find a place that fits the geographical description of the Garden in the Old Testament. (Failing that we can look for the Cherubim with the flaming sword sent to guard the gate from Adam's descendants.) We do have a problem, in that this is very unusual behaviour for rivers, and apparently doesn't happen anywhere in the Middle East, not today at least, but we should start by identifying these rivers.

OK. The Euphrates is easy: it's big and flows out of Iraq. The Havilah is apparently an Arhamaic name for the Tigris, so that's two. The Gihon and the Hiddekel have to be rivers in the same area- but because of the desertification of the region in the last 1,000 years we're almost certainly looking for dried up watercourses, not rivers, so our problem apparently isn't as serious as it seemed at first.

Hang on. Shit. There was a really big Flood, fierce enough to make mountains, shift the continents and make the Grand Canyon, and deep enough leave fossils on top of big ranges. This certainly accounts for the fact that there is no Cherubim with a sword, because the Garden, like the rest of Earth's green places, could not have survived intact and was no longer in need of guarding.

But still, how on earth are we going to find these waddies and ancient watercourses and how can we be sure that the course of the Euphrates hasn't changed in the last 6,000 years? Actually, given the cataclysm, is there any point in the exercise at all?

But hang on redux. The Hiddekel is the river 'which goeth to the east of Assyria', according to Genesis. And Assyria is the land of Asshur.

Who was born after the great Flood.

Carbon dating, on the other hand, is inaccurate, and light from distant stars might have sped up.

What a second there, I thought for sure that the names for those places came with affidavits testifying to their uniquness, complete with plat maps and GPS data.

(Carbon dating is based on how much orignal assumptions on original concentrations. If you're going to use something to rag on Creationism, use KAr dating (the startlight thing is good too).)

But, you're doing it agian, the insurmountable odds against Evolution are easily transversed in a single leap of faith, while the Creationists are allowed none.

You're not allowed a leap of faith. Either Genesis is an accurate description of what actually happened or it isn't. If it is, it has to be historically and geographically consistent. If it isn't, in any regard, we can't pick and choose which parts are accurate and which aren't. Your explanation, which is utterly dependent on the literal accuracy of this part of the Old Testament, is finished.

I honestly don't see your problem.

The Genesis account never claims to be written before the Flood, and the text refers to a river in a place that was known to people at the time of writing as Assyria.

Perhaps some kind soul who's been on this board awhile would like to enlighten Marc about who's quoted in my sig (from the recent U.S. election campaign.)

But it's typical. You can't find a problem with my post so you attack the sig, and bring up some unrelated nonsense.

Let Hassan and Tonton address the skeptic side of this thread. At least they have the whole intelligence thing going for them.

Yes, in theory, that is correct. In this case, you are attempting to read much into the text more than it claims. And you place all problems with the messenger and none with the reciever -- agian, you assume the human mind to be completely sufficient to itself.

At any rate, like segovious' "problem" in Luke, these "problems" all have probable explanations. You can look to the "Cain where is your brother" examples, or even attempt to impose modern cosmology on Genesis -- as if God couldn't overide the laws of physics -- (the Big Bang theory does this as well.)

The "mistakes" and "errors" of the Bible are nearly symantic in nature. The "...Jesus was by the lake/he wasn't by the lake" type "problems" don't all have "airtight" solutions, but it is a matter of Faith to believe that they will have airtight explanations at some point. For now the probable explanations will have to do -- not that I've ever heard that sort of statement from an evolutionist. Oooooohhh noooooooo.


It's important to note, as a system of truth, the Bible doesn't have these problems.

But like I've said, you don't believe it's possible for the Bible to exist as a fixed revelation of God, so why even feign interest? If you applied the same scrutiny to science you would find it impossible to believe in it as authoritative on the true nature of the universe -- but since your belief is in your own intellect as self-sufficient, and mankind's in general as even more so, you can ignore what you see in order to see what you wish. This is the precise reason no one ever comes back on me when I mention the infinite probability of evolution occuring -- because it's a matter of faith despite the numbers.

break time is over for me

Alright then. After a cataclysm powerful enough to drive America from Africa and ram India into Asia in forty days, to form the Grand Canyon, to leave fossils on top of newly-formed mountains in every continent in the world (sorted for anatomical complexity, I might add, clever Flood) a writer writing in a Middle Eastern language can confidently say that a river with its source in a specific geographical place flows through a specific piece of land and can name them both?

It's not that Genesis claims to have been written before or after the Flood. Most of its events take place after the damn thing was supposed to have happened, you see.

The guy who wrote this bit is describing a world pre-deluge as if nothing at all had changed. He's naming places and describing them. How the hell is he supposed to know even where is?

I've seen this explained to you dozens of times.

First you choose not to understand it and then you choose not to remember people have even tried to explain it to you. Man.

Breaktime's over for me too.

Post content and people might read it (Perhaps I don't count because I'm "on your side"? ). Take the piss out of their sig and you have failed.

Frank: where MarcUK is concerned, astrotheology is related to everything (somehow).

You must be working late.


On the evolution thing, don't go there, it doesn't function, and this is getting more and more apparent as time goes by. But agian, no one wants to come out and admit they want it both ways when it comes to the numbers.

More on your Genesis thingy later. I'm still at work.

You must be working late.

On the creation story thing, don't go there, it doesn't function, and this has been quite apparent for six thousand years now. But again, no one wants to come out and admit they want it to be true when it clearly isn't.

More on your Evolution thingy later. I'm still at work.

Hassan i Sabbah I just did some reading in the bijou dmz library -- I don't think you can get much traction on this one. Apparently the Tigris and Euprates don't share the same source at all, although Pliny and one of Alexander's fabulous Admirals, among others, claim they both have been MASSIVELY SCREWED WITH by those living on their banks over the years. So I guess they could have intermigled and made little baby rivers. I'm sure there's a "big wet delta" joke in there somewhere.

It doesn't appear that these are the same two (four?) rivers that we know today, which would make sense. It wouldn't be underheard of to borrow the name of one memorable river to name another.

no they don't that's the point it says they do in the bible and then they're described after the flood as if we still know that the same rivers flowed before the flood and oh what's the point

not the take the piss mode! Nobody expects the take the piss mode!!

dean(scream);

I agree. Is it Christmas yet?

This is all a bit disingenuous.

There is actually quite a lot of scientific research and evidence into this issue and, much as I would like to deny it, the facts do absolutely support the Genesis story. Scholarly research has been headed by Dr Juris Zarins (Smithsonian) and David Rohl (University of London). Also check out Reginald Walker.

What the ramifications of this are it is not for me to say but it revolves just the same. Check this:


Rohl is the current leader (although he builds on the earlier research of those mentioned above) and has positively identified the following key features in an area ten miles outside Tabriz in Iran:

1) The four rivers: Tigris, obviously the Tigris and Euphrates are what they are but Rohl has shown that the Gihon and the Pishon are identifiable with the Araxes and Uizhun - additionally the headwaters of all four are to be found in the Tabriz area location.

Re the Uizhun (Pishon), Rohl also shows that this is known locally as 'the Golden River' and further, it flows between ancient gold mines - a further confirmation of the Genesis claim.

2) The land of Nod: Rohl has found the "Land of Nod" (described in Genesis as "East of Eden.") to the east of his location in an area now called the 'Land of Noqdi."

3) Several km south of Noqdi is a settlement known as "Kheruabad," which
Rohl traces to a derivation of the Hebrew word 'keruvim' or 'cherubim'.

4) Land of Kush: Rohl has disproved the established view that this refers to an Egyptian location and located an alternative in the area which further supports the Genesis accounts. There is a nearby 'mountain of Kusheh Dagh' and beyond lies a 'land of Kush' (as in Hindu Kush) and yes, one of the rivers winds through it as Genesis states.

There's much more but that's the main points of interest here.

One more thing: let's get away from the insanity of the fundies reductionist agenda - the facts here do not prove the Bible is the word of 'God' or support the Churchian perversion of Christ's doctrine in any way.

All it means, if true, is that the writer of Genesis had a particular place in mind when he wrote his fiction and that we may have located this area.

It does not in any way prove anything about the fundies view - even if false and untrue (which much of the Bible is unfortunately) it is still useful as a historical document. It can be true historically and false metaphysically and I think any rational person will recognise this.

That's my point. The guy who wrote Genesis was describing a real place. And post-Flood place.

The Flood's a load of crap, you see. How funny.

Wow, missed that subtlety. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant !

It was like a Capablanca check-mate - beautiful elegance and subtlety and simultaneously forcing the fundies to inflict their own defeat on themselves, a defeat from which there is no return !

Awesome - my cap is doffed.

Yes, I particularly enjoyed it as well...

You definitly get points for contrivance.

The Tigris and Euphrates don't start form the same source --- too much rumcake and brownies?

If the flood is true then it must mean that we are all descended from Noah and his immediate family. On a Biblical time scale this would be in the order of 3000 years ago.

How do you explain in the light of that belief:

The wide and disparate genetic make up of the myriad racial groupings of humanity.

Varying skin colours.

The lack of serious defects resulting from such inbreeding (umm....wait.....).

All in 300 years.

Also, while you are about it you might consider this: the size of the ark is given exactly in the BIble - and it ain't that big.

There is a Church in Brighton, UK that is modelled on exactly these dimensions. I have been in it and I can assure you there is no way you could get the whole of the animal kingdom within. Even 2 small specimens of each would be problematic - and more particularly the seven pairs that Genesis later contradicts itself with.

Seriously, how can you believe this nonsense ?

In any event the human race had to start out loaded at the deep end of the gene pool. Otherwise, we would all be in trouble. Especially when evolution is asking for hundreds of thousands of years or procreation. The gene pool would have to endure introduced replication errors for all that time and would have to have a fairly robust and pristine set of "features" to start with. Skin color isn't a problem, you can see that today. As for the Ark, there have been a couple of feasability studies which are at least probable.


I don't think you guys are going to get much traction outside the starlight, KAr dating argument.

Did the Ark work a bit like the TARDIS on Doctor Who?

I'm sure it was much easier to fit all of those pairs on animals on the tiny little Ark considering that evolution hadn't allowed for mutiple variations of each species yet.

Ok - Genesis says seven pairs (another contradiction) - that's a lot of beasts to keep in order.

I mean how did one old guy Noah, a couple of blokes and a few girlies keep a lid on it ? It would have been a gorefest orgy - they'd have all been shagging each other and eating the smaller furry animals as soon as the ark weighed anchor.

I can't see it - you know what it's like just with a Jack Russell in the local park.

Read the Genesis account, Marc.

The Ark was did not simply consist of pieces of wood bolted together.
That's a tell-tale argument of someone who hasn't read the relevant text.

Mark UK: Interesting, but I must disagree.

Sergovious: You lost me.

Good to see you back.


Good point. Especially in a society where we tend to regard the ancients as rather quaint and simplistic, it is very hard to attribute to them the sort of accuracy we would like. However, if the Bible really is something more than just a book of ancient texts, it should be reflected in it's accuracy in areas we can test.


You beat me to it. Actually, I believe that God protected the writings that best told the story, and then handed them to the Israelites, who, if you look back into history, were fanatical about keeping the documents unchanged and protected.


Good idea. Check the bible out. See if the civilizations that the bible mentioned actually existed. Check out this country of "Ur" that Abraham is supposed to have come from. Stuff like that.
What I did, after I reached the conclusion that there had to be a Designer, based upon what I saw in nature, was to go and read all of the major holy books of different religions, like the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, the Bible, etc.
Maybe it was my western bias, but only the Bible told a concise, and where it could be tested, completely accurate story.
I think many Christians, actually, treat God like an inscrutable "divine force". I tend to look at it; "If God wanted to tell the history of the world, how would he do it?".


Yes, many of them actually. I just read an article by a microbiologist who believes that God made the world work according to certain physical laws, that basically predestined it for evental concious life. I completely disagree with him on the scientific principles of his argument, but his belief is a pretty common one these days.
Heck, I would like to be a naturalist some days. Without God, we're basically intellegent animals. Why bother explaining God at all? I mean, if there is no divine personality to be accountable to, you can do whatever you want, right?


No, not really. From where I am, I just look at the fundamental problems that science has trying to fit a naturalistic model into the constrainments of fact. (arguments like the thermodynamics of abiogenesis, irreducible complexity, the absense of macroevolution, etc.) However, if you have an axiom that a Designer made these objects, you are then obligated (at least I was) to do a little research into who this Designer might be.

A note to everybody bickering about the euphrates, and the other rivers.
Someone said that a flood as big as the one stated in the bible would (most likely) destroy any existing topography around which these rivers might have existed. (As well as destroying the garden of eden). Absolutely right.
What makes more sense is that as the earth was repopulated after the flood, the same (or similar) names would have been given to major rivers. Especially if the new river reminded the settlers of the old, pre-flood one. A similar analogy would be the tradition of naming cities in America after cities from the country of origin. I grew up just outside of "New London", as a matter of fact.

As for the Ark not holding enough animals, this is a very old argument, one big enough that it's had several books written about it. First, here's a synopsis of one, but the best I have found would be John Woodmorappe's "Noah's Ark: a feasibility study".
Segovius (incorrectly) states that the bible says five of each animal were taken on the ark. Only five of every "clean" animal were taken, i.e. those considered edible. This would (presumably) allow for a faster regeneration of basic herbivores like sheep, cattle, etc.


Well, let's see it!

That's exactly what I was referring to.

The ark is said to be covered in pitch (asphalt) on the inside and out.
That would make it waterproof and incredibly strong.

It's a little known fact that is often missed by people who casually dismiss the 'wooden' ark as unworkable.

Maybe a cool project would be for everyone in this thread to get together for a few weekends and build a replica ark?

I mean, really, how long could it take?

Edit: First line refers to Marc's post above, not Benzene's.